Critics Target US Military Chapel Services. Again.

A video (which you can watch here) of US Marines worshiping God to Days of Elijah — complete with “oorah!” added to the lyrics — went “viral” a week or so ago, spreading across the internet in a bold display of faith and freedom.

And a few atheists really didn’t like that.

It seems Rock Beyond Belief — a one-hit wonder that staged an underwhelming stage show at Fort Bragg — has degraded into a repository of atheists bellyaching about Christians exercising their religious freedom while serving in the US military. Having learned about the video, their Facebook page launched an “investigation” — because some Marines in the video “don’t appear happy to be there, as if they were forced:”

All these Marines are SOI (School of Infantry) students. This program was not available to Fleet Marines. That is indicative that the unhappy ones did not have a choice.

I’ve done research and I believe that if a violation occurred it had to with SOI Instructors and/or their commanders forcing all students to attend regardless of their religious preference.

It turns out their inside contacts confirmed the Sunday evening worship service was exactly that:

After looking into this. It’s not illegal nor does it violate any code.

Bravo for honesty, though its telling they had to proactively go out and search for something over which to be offended. But, finding the Marine’s religious chapel service to be permissible by the rules, did these atheists defend it as a positive example of religious freedom in the US military? Nope:

It’s still stupid.

Imagine how many jihadists will be inspired to join up to fight this “Christian military.” No one ever accused Christians of being smart, though.

The criticism was matched by many of their followers:

War on Terror….Or as I like to call it “The Crusades—Remix Edition”

Looks like some serious cult-like indoctrination…

This is North Korea, right? These robots aren’t Americans, right?

That’s some cult s***right there

and they look so stupid. like little mindless nursery school children

That is sinister as f@&k.

This is the same trope Michael “Mikey” Weinstein has trotted out every few years. The basic gist: Scenes of military Christians exercising religious liberty — even within the context of religious services — might inspire America’s adversaries to attack us and kill the very peers of those worshiping. Ergo, they must not be allowed. That’s true “religious freedom” according to Mikey Weinstein and his atheist acolytes.

In fact, the “theme video” of Weinstein’s “charity” used the words of a chaplain during a chapel service in Afghanistan to fundraise for years. To be clear, he used the pastor’s sermon to the congregation of service members to raise money for himself — in order to stop those troops from being able to hear those very sermons.

Similarly, Weinstein’s research assistant Chris Rodda is widely known to have blasted a public Easter celebration in the combat zone (much to their chagrin), and Weinstein himself said a video of US Marines being baptized during a religious service “advanc[ed] the cause” of al Qaeda and the Taliban. These were nothing more than religious services, conducted under the auspices of the US military’s chaplaincy, protecting the religious liberty of the troops as they trained and fought in combat — yet Mikey Weinstein claimed they aided our enemies.

This exercise of religious freedom is opposed by Weinstein’s Military Religious Freedom Foundation, presumably because these acts of worship have been Christian. He has attacked no other, despite other religions being just as public about their exercise in the US military.

Allen West highlighted the video of the singing Marines, and poked Weinstein’s expected blustery response:

[This] video is surely going to send the head chucklehead of the Military Religious Freedom Foundation, Mikey Weinstein, into a apoplectic state of frothing hysteria.

If there’s one thing Weinstein is good at, its “frothing hysteria.”

Humor aside, atheists and critics like Mikey Weinstein know the military is sensitive to criticism. Weinstein has routinely said his favorite weapon is simply to threaten to go to the media, believing the military will kowtow not because he is right, but because they want to avoid publicity. In this case, even the Facebook “investigation” may have had some impact. The atheists at RBB said:

you seemed to ruffle some feathers at SOI! It seems that the school is aware of this and another video are in the hands of an “atheist group” and the chain of command is already making sure no one from the school attended. Hahaha! Nice work sir.

The Marines’ worship is part of a regular Sunday evening chapel service. The public expression of that worship — even if by video — is supposed to be protected by military policies dictated by US law — laws passed for two consecutive years by Congress and signed by President Obama specifically to protect religious expression by US troops.

It seems some atheists think the public expression of Christian beliefs in the US military is dangerous, and it needs to stop.

Yet these atheists would probably claim they only want “religious freedom” — apparently, so long as they get to define which religions.